Mountain Hiking

Its been a few days since we got any real exercise so we geared up, packed a lunch and started to go to the Redfish Trailhead. 

But before we could leave, poor John had to fix a nasty mistake that I made in the bathroom! I added our Happy Camper black tank treatment but did not flush it down. It proceeded to form a cement like covering over the flush hole in the toilet. So after a ‘daily constitutional’ it would not flush!! We thought the toilet was permanently broken! What a mess to clean up, chop up the ‘cement’ and find that it still works. I will be indebted to John for many, many days after what he had to do! And I will ALWAYS flush the treatment down right away!

Now on with our hike. From the trailhead parking lot it was a short walk to the dock and we paid to take a pontoon ride to the far end of the lake where we began our adventure for the day. It was a beautiful ride on the crystal clear, blue lake with the mountains towering above. A couple of young men were on the boat with us who were going on a 6 day hike in the wilderness. Good luck to them!

Our hike took us up the mountain side for three miles then down a short walk to the other side of the ridge and then up again for another 1/2 mile or so to the Bench Lakes region. There are actually 5 lakes in a string but we only visited two of them. From the lakes it was all downhill for another 4 1/2 miles. Luckily it was a nice day, not too hot with a slight breeze. Unfortunately, the trail was not only very dusty but full of rocks and roots. We would have to come to a complete stop in order to enjoy the views and the views were wonderful. On our right was Redfish Lake with glimpses of the White Cloud Mountain range and on the left was the Sawtooth Wilderness and mountain peaks. By the time we got back to the Jeep we were exhausted with sore feet and stiff necks (from watch our feet). It was a good night to eat out in Stanley.